A second row of ambulance waggons is loaded
from the dressing-station--each waggon holds nine--and goes lumbering
off to the field hospital. Here the men are laid on the ground with
perhaps a waterproof sheet under them and a blanket over them. The
R.A.M.C. officers come round, select certain cases for operation, and
see to the bandaging and dressing of the others. Finally one of the
ambulance trains arrives, about 120 men are packed in it and it steams
off rapidly to some base hospital at Orange River, De Aar, Wynberg or
Rondebosch.
Any detailed account of Lord Methuen's battles lies outside the scope of
this little volume, and the British public know already practically all
that can be known about the general plan of such engagements as Belmont,
Graspan and Modder River.
Belmont is an insignificant railway station lying in the middle of as
dreary a bit of veldt as can well be imagined. A clump of low kopjes run
almost parallel to the railway on the right, and to ascend these hills
our men had to advance over an absolutely level plain devoid of any
cover save an occasional big stone or an anthill (precarious rampart!)
or the still feebler shelter of a bush two feet high. In their
transverse march our men had to cross the railway, and lost considerably
during the delay occasioned by cutting the wire fences on either side to
clear a way for themselves and the guns.
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